


Who Done It

by DevineMandate



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 13:24:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21209279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevineMandate/pseuds/DevineMandate
Summary: A wildly melodramatic, light-on-details take on the moment Leda Strike's killer is discovered





	Who Done It

“It was you!”

Strike stared in abject horror. Not in ten thousand years would he have ever believed in a universe where this could be true. He felt the enormity of her lies; it threatened to undermine his hold on consciousness; it rocked his entire world, throwing long stretches of his life into hideous, tortured relief.

“Corm, I know this sounds bad, but she had to go. She made you miserable, you remember. You couldn’t think about anything but her, she was an anchor. It was when she was gone that you stepped out into the world and made yourself. You couldn't have done that if she'd been alive."

"God, you're insane. Oh my God!" He was still reeling, tried to focus on a detail. "Did you pay Whittaker to get the drugs AND kill her or did you...did you..."

"Did I kill her myself, Bluey?" said Charlotte, incredibly beautiful, incredibly terrible. "No, it was a distasteful job. No need to get my hands dirty like that. Whittaker did everything. Corm, you were better than her, you rose up when she was gone.”

“If I’m ANYTHING good, it’s BECAUSE of my MOTHER!” Strike wailed.

“Oh, because mothers are magical creatures that LOVE their children SO MUCH. How is it that I killed those interlopers in my womb then?”

Strike sagged again--he had thought he’d known the depths of her depravity, but she was round the twist, and he’d been blinded by her beauty, and her gravitational pull, and her sex, and he had known nothing essential about her at all.

“Oh, Bluey. It’s a real shame. You just couldn’t ever let it go, and I know you’ll never let me go. I love you so much; you were the most fun to play with, but now YOU have to go.”

She pulled a pistol from her bag.

“I’m not sure yet whether I’ll kill Robin or not. It’s fun to imagine her sobbing at your graveside, and then getting poisoned or having an accident that night. But maybe I should let her live for a while, let the grief last. Strawberry blonde bitch with her milk maid tits that took your eyes off me. Maybe I’ll let her live if you tell me who else knows anything about this.”

Strike was out of options and about to jump toward her and just hope things turned out well, but then the door behind Charlotte was kicked open, knocking her flat, the gun flying out of her hand. Wardle, Robin, and Shanker flew in, and Wardle had Charlotte Campbell Ross cuffed behind her back and on the ground before Strike knew what had happened.

“Cormoran, are you all right?” asked Robin.

“Robin, she...it was her, she…”

“I know, Cormoran. I’m so sorry.”

Strike felt like he’d have to mourn his mother all over again, do penance for 20 years of not knowing that he had let her murderer into his life. Oh, he’d never stop feeling guilty and broken and ashamed.

Wardle had come over to Strike and Robin. “Nasty business, Strike. We’ll bring her in and start getting statements. Everyone here will need to come to the station.”

No one had been paying attention to Shanker, who now stepped toward Charlotte. Quiet descended after Wardle finished speaking, and everyone turned toward Shanker’s footfalls as he reached Charlotte and loomed over her. He eyed her beadily, and then said quietly, “So you’re the one 'oo done it.”

Strike yelled, “Shanker, no!”

The knife flashed from nowhere and it was in Charlotte’s throat and Shanker was slashing and hacking viciously. Charlotte was making nightmarish noises and the blood was everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Wardle threw himself on Shanker, and Strike tried to apply pressure somewhere to keep Charlotte alive, but there was no sense or recognition in her eyes now, and she was dead within seconds.

Robin stood back from the three men and the one corpse, aghast, her hand over her mouth, weeping.

Shanker said, “‘sall right, Bunsen, I’ll take the rap. I’d spend eternity in ‘ell for it. Wurf it to get the one 'oo done it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just because we know these three things: 1) Charlotte sucks and is jealous, 2) Charlotte and Strike met when he was 19, 3) Leda died when he was 20.


End file.
